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" As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am. "

DeRay Mckesson

I Am

Man

Space

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" The student newspapers are as important to me as the 'New York Times.' "

DeRay Mckesson

Student

New

" I've never been a surrogate for Bernie, Hillary, or the DNC. "

" I think about Twitter as the friend that's always awake. It's why I tweet so much. "

" Protest is political. It is as political as what our conception of America is. "

" The difference between equity and equality is that equality is everyone get the same thing and equity is everyone get the things they deserve. "

" I just couldn't believe that the police would fire tear gas into what had been a peaceful protest. I was running around, face burning, and nothing I saw looked like America to me. "

" What we choose to do today and tomorrow will shape our future and build our reality. "

" I think hope is the belief that tomorrow can be better than today, and I don't lose hope. "

" I think Twitter is an incredible platform. I want to see it succeed. "

" Politics is compromise, by its very nature. But we never compromise on our values and beliefs. "

" I think about freedom as not only as the absence of oppression but also the presence of justice and joy. "

" If City Hall started projecting swastikas, no one would say 'You know what? Free speech.' People would say that is wrong. "

" I was a teacher. I also worked at Harlem Children's Zone. I moved back to Baltimore and opened up an after-school, out-of-school program on the west side and then worked in two public school districts, in Baltimore and Minneapolis. "

DeRay Mckesson

Teacher

Two

" The history of blackness is also a history of erasure. "

" People often confuse visibility with a lot of other things. Sometimes I become a proxy for things that just aren't true about me. People will say, 'DeRay got millions of dollars in grants.' That's just not true... I'm broke. "

" Social media allowed us to become our own storytellers. With it, we seized the power of our truth. "

" I'm not convinced that stealing an iPhone is a felony or stealing a bike is a felony. "

" I think people are uncomfortable talking about the racist history of this country and what we need to do to undo the impact of racism. "

" We question these issues of race and struggle and white privilege because we know that those issues are real and because those issues have real implications in black communities. And white supremacy is not only dangerous, but it is deadly. "

" Skills acquisition is really at the heart of what it means to learn. "

" If anything, any success that I have ever experienced has been because people who didn't have to care about me did, and they pushed me to see things in myself that I did not see in myself at the time. "

DeRay Mckesson

Time

People

" I'm not a politician. I'm somebody who knows the world can be better, and I'm willing to fight for it. "

" What we know to be true is that comfort isn't always freedom. People confuse the two. "

" You are enough to start a movement. Individual people can come together around things that they know are unjust. And they can spark change. "

" Expressing and loving myself is often so much more complex than 'out' affords me. "

DeRay Mckesson

Complex

" Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional. "

" Too often, the elected individuals we put our public trust in disappoint us. "

" I think people who are not from here think the Inner Harbor is the only center for culture or fun in the city, and there's so much more to Baltimore. The Harbor's a beautiful place, but there are so many gems embedded in other communities that don't get as much visibility. "

" As a protester, I protested because I had to, not because it was exciting. I don't want to get tear-gassed again. "

" People like to act like we don't have a legacy of racism here. I think people get really uncomfortable with it. We know that we can't change it unless we address that. "